Apple Unveils New Open-Sourced AI Model That Can Run On Laptop & Phones

Numerous tech giants around the world have introduced their own generative artificial intelligence (AI) models for commercial use except for the iPhone maker, Apple. It is not sitting idle though, the company is actively working in that space. The researchers of Apple on Wednesday unveiled the Open-source Efficient Language Models (OpenELM). OpenELM is a series of four very small language models, the Hugging Face model library. According to the tech giant, OpenELM performs very efficiently on text-related tasks such as email writing.

As for now, Apple has kept the models open source and they are now ready for developers to try their hands at.

As stated, the model is notably compact in comparison to those developed by other companies known as tech giants such as Microsoft and Google. The latest models of Apple range from 270 million parameters to 3 billion parameters. For example, Microsoft’s Phi-3 model boasts 3.8 billion parameters, while Google’s Gemma is equipped with a 2 billion parameter version. Smaller models demand fewer resources for operation and are compatible with devices like smartphones and laptops.

Earlier in February, the CEO of Apple, Tim Cook alluded to the upcoming integration of generative AI features into Apple devices. He emphasised Apple’s substantial investment of effort and time in this domain. However, there are no specific details available yet regarding the nature of these AI features.

This latest AI model from Apple is not the company’s first venture into this realm. Previously, Apple introduced an image editing model named MGIE, which enables users to enhance photos by following prompts.

Apple To Announce New Products

Apple has announced its plans to hold an event later this month to unveil new products. The company has begun sending out invitations to members of the media for the “special Apple Event” scheduled for May 7 at 7 AM PT (7:30 PM IST). The invitation image prominently features an Apple Pencil, indicating that iPads will likely take centre stage during the event.

It seems that Apple will opt for an entirely online format for the event, similar to the “Scary Fast” event held in October. All invitations issued by Apple suggest that the event will be accessible for online viewing, with no indications of an in-person event being planned.